January 23, 2026 鈥� This morning, Fr. Brendan Gottschall, SJ, assistant director and promoter of vocations for the USA East Province of the Society of Jesus, delivered this homily at the Ignatian Family Mass for Life, which is organized by the Ignatian Solidarity Network and the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States, at St. Aloysius Church in Washington, D.C. More than 300 students from Jesuit schools and parishes around the country attended, including from Creighton Preparatory High School, Creighton University, De Smet Jesuit High School, Fordham University, Georgetown Prep, Gonzaga College High School, Jesuit High School New Orleans, Legion of Christ the King in Maryland, Loyola Blakefield, Marquette High School, Regis Jesuit High School in Denver, Saint Ignatius College Prep in Chicago, Saint Louis University High School, St. Mary Student Parish in Ann Arbor, Michigan, St. Thomas the Apostle Parish in Phoenix, Arizona and University of Detroit Jesuit High School.
What a joyful gift from God to be here with you this morning. It is particular consolation for me to join you for this Ignatian Family Mass for Life as we gather in Washington, D.C., for the March for Life. I say a particular consolation because the March for Life was a formative experience of faith for me growing up. As a kid in the 90s, my mom and my grandmother would pack up my brother and my cousins and me, and we would drive down from New Jersey to my uncle鈥檚 house in Maryland then take the Metro into D.C., first to go to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception the night before for the vigil Mass, then to the National Mall for the March itself.
I can remember how bitter cold it so often was and how good the hot chocolate tasted. But I can also remember how moving it was to sit with the Missionaries of Charity at Mass and to hear hundreds of priests chant the doxology together. These experiences of community certainly formed me as a Catholic, and I believe nurtured the seeds of my vocation.
What was it 鈥� what is it 鈥� about something like this March for Life that can leave such an impact on our lives? I would argue that it is because the experience is one of community, gathered around a common purpose, that instills a sense of belonging that transcends space and time. At the March, you feel a part of a whole which is much larger than yourself, and in which you belong, because of that purpose, an end, of that whole.
And why are we here? To promote the inherent dignity of human life, 鈥渢o protect and enhance the sacredness of all human life鈥� as the Sisters of Life say in . This purpose is a noble one. It defies the worldly obsession with self-interest. We do not gather in the freezing cold for any benefit to ourselves, but because we believe, we know, that each and every human life deserves respect from conception to natural death. This event has become a tradition, since we know that despite some legal victories, the fight for justice continues. As a tradition, it connects us to those who have marched in the past and will march in the future as well as to those who support us from afar. We are a part of something bigger than ourselves.
Like any movement toward justice, there are heroes, stalwarts who advanced the cause little by little, who become inspirations for those who follow in their paths. The 蜜桃视频 and our colleagues are not without our share of leaders in this regard, and their example can show us a particularly Ignatian and Jesuit way of being pro-life. Thus, I want to highlight briefly three heroes of the pro-life movement who are inspirations to me, one laywoman and two 蜜桃视频: Jeanne Mancini, Fr. Thomas King, SJ, and Fr. Joseph Koterski, SJ.
Jeanne Mancini was for many years the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, the foundation that organizes the March for Life. As a Catholic, Mancini who grew up in a family with a strong sense of social justice. But in an interview a few years ago, Mancini during her experience in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) that helped deepen that understanding:
[W]hen I was working for the Jesuit Volunteer Corps after college, I was working with young people who had very tragically been the victims of abuse or neglect. They were in a youth crisis shelter before they would go to new adoptive parents, or to a foster home, or to a residential treatment center. Even though I was Catholic, I was grappling with questions of the faith a lot 鈥� and thinking, 鈥淢aybe it would be better if some of these kids were never born.鈥� I was really struggling through that, and then I had a devout Catholic say to me, 鈥淲ho are you to judge the quality of anyone鈥檚 life?鈥� And that was a bit of a game-changer for me. In that moment, I thought, 鈥淓very person has inherent human dignity from the moment of conception, and even if they suffer terribly, that doesn鈥檛 make them less dignified. We should never judge the value of someone鈥檚 life.鈥�
This moment of encounter with suffering and her engaging it within the community and tradition of the Church are essential elements of an Ignatian approach.
The life of Fr. Tom King, SJ, also reveals to us something of the Ignatian, Jesuit contribution to the cause of life. Fr. King was a professor of theology at Georgetown University for almost 50 years. In his theology, he was a devotee of the Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Thomas Merton. He was an active member of Pax Christi, an organization which opposes war and capital punishment, as well as the founding president of University Faculty for Life.
Fr. King is probably best remembered for the 11:15 p.m. candlelight Mass that he would celebrate each weekday night on campus at Georgetown. Fr. King died after my freshman year at Georgetown, so I did not get to know him well, but I remember the void that he left. Fr. King combined a rarified sanctity and passion for the divine with a deeply intellectual engagement, especially with creation. He recognized the activity of the divine in the world. We might call such a combination incarnational.
Finally, Fr. Joseph Koterski, SJ, whom I did know a bit better, was also a Jesuit priest and professor of philosophy at Fordham University. Fr. Koterski had served on the board of University Faculty for Life and was a man remarkable in his generosity. Pretty much any religious sister or priest of a whole generation on the Eastern seaboard had Fr. Koterski as a teacher or spiritual director at some point.
After his death in 2021, Kathryn Jean Lopez recalled working with Fr. Koterski on the Archdiocese of New York Pro-Life Commission. She that 鈥渉is desire to defend, protect and nourish human life was not just right and just, but personal. He was born with a cleft palate; he knew others would see that imperfection as a rationale for abortion. His parents cherished him, and he was always aware [of that] and boundlessly grateful.鈥� Fr. Koterski鈥檚 life of self-offering shows us the sacrificial element of an Ignatian, Jesuit approach to being pro-life. We are called to offer our whole selves with Jesus in response to the many self-gifts of God.
Encounter. Incarnation. Sacrifice. These are elements of an Ignatian and Jesuit approach because they are elements of the life and mystery of Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate example and source of our strength to continue on in this tradition, this community, to protect and enhance the sacredness of all human life. We now turn to receive him in his holy body and precious blood, to be drawn deeper into communion with God and one another and to receive his strength to carry on. As we receive this gift and go out into the streets, we remember that we are part of something greater than ourselves, namely the church, the mystical body of Christ. May we remain always faithful.
